Abstract:
This article investigates the philological background and philosophical stakes of the “banner of the enlightenment”, “with the names of Petrarch, Erasmus, Voltaire”, that Nietzsche wants to “bring further” (Human, all too human, I, 26). It underlines the typological construction of an enlightenment man as an heir of the Renaissance, characterized by his mobility beyond national, social, literary and philosophical boarders. Nietzsche takes place in this “monumental history” of these philologists and philosophers-poets, “liberators” anti-Scholastic and reformators of their time, anticipating the notion of “good European”.
Keywords:
Voltaire; Petrarch; Erasmus; Folly; Good European; Free spirit.